When Devils Sing(62)

Isaiah glanced her way, eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t know, but Second Sons now owns the property.”

Neera swallowed the thick saliva building in her throat. “Another dead end.”

“It’s better than nothing,” Isaiah offered optimistically.

They passed the massive peanut packing plant on the edge of Carrion, a symbol of the most rural part of the greater Langley County. The land here was dry and flat as all the rest, but it felt wilder and more untouched than other parts of Carrion. There was no sign of civilization in sight. Only farmland and slash pines in every direction. Was this really where Ajay thought to open a business?

A few minutes later, Isaiah parked the BMW in front of a building that was a mix of old wood slab and brick. The parking lot was long since overgrown with weeds, a thick blanket of kudzu, and tire marks. The whole place looked eerie and postapocalyptic, a level of run-down that managed to outshine most of Carrion. The building itself was single story and wide. It boasted a massive sign, which read: BLIND BUCKS.

“Are you seeing this?” Neera scrambled out of the car. She pointed to the logo beneath the sign, a sprawling antler insignia. The same one from Dawson’s key chain and the shirt from Ajay’s photo. Looking at the building now, she realized it was the same one in the background of the old photograph, too. “I was right.”

Isaiah appeared beside her, studying the building, hand shading his eyes from the morning sun. “Why was Dawson carrying a key chain from a bar that never even opened?”

“This is getting weird,” Neera murmured as they approached the bar’s front door, finding it chained and padlocked.

“You have that key still?” Isaiah asked.

Neera took it out of her pocket and tossed it to him. Isaiah tried it in the padlock, but it didn’t open. He tried it in the door’s dead bolt, too, but to no avail.

“Whatever this is for, it’s not the front door,” Isaiah said.

Neera tried to peek inside, but the windows were all boarded up. She could barely see through a slit in the wood, finding what looked like a stage on the other side of the wide room. A bar was in the center, tables around it, angled toward the low-set stage. The layout reminded her of the way the Tavern was designed.

“I don’t get it,” Neera said. “All that money for what? For this piece of shit?”

Isaiah’s eyebrows knitted in sympathy. “It wasn’t a bad investment for the time, you know. Apparently, there were plans in place to revitalize this side of Carrion. Money was being thrown around to keep the local farmers out here in business. To bring in some local commerce so they wouldn’t have to drive thirty minutes into town and so on.”

“Then what happened?”

“What always happens.” Isaiah frowned. “Russ Langley swooped in and bought the land up for a better price, then bankrupted the farmers. Fucked over every little guy involved, while the Clearwater folks cashed their checks. Now, it’s nothing.”

“And people like my family are left to pay the price,” Neera remarked. She kicked a nearby rock halfway across the parking lot, watching it vanish into encroaching kudzu.

“We need to figure out who’s behind Second Sons,” Isaiah considered aloud. “Let me look into it a bit more before we do anything rash, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Neera ambled out into the parking lot, glass crunching beneath her Birkenstocks. She took in the old building, the dying land, struggling to see the vision Ajay had for it. She supposed the front porch had potential if there’d been some rocking chairs and outdoor fans.

Then she walked around the side of the building and finally saw a glimpse of what Ajay had wanted. Painted along the wide brick wall was a once-colorful mural—the kind you could find in historical downtowns across rural Georgia. It was a bright design featuring an old-timey map of Carrion, cicadas, peach trees, and song notes wrapping between other iconic Southern imagery. There was even a silhouette of a young girl holding a guitar. The girl was featureless, but Neera couldn’t help but wonder if Ajay had depicted her on purpose, as a message to her.

Blind Bucks could’ve been a lot of things, but like Ajay, it was never given an honest chance.

“Neera?” Isaiah was now standing a few feet away, looking between her and the mural, with a vintage film camera in his hand.

Neera sniffled, tempering the tears threatening to fall. “This was meant to be a place for musicians. If Ajay couldn’t make it as one, he’d at least make a place for them to gather and play.”

Isaiah was quiet for a beat, surely taking in the weight of her words. “Are you okay?”

Neera ignored his question. “That’s new,” she said, motioning to the camera in his hand.

Isaiah snapped a photo of the mural. “Just a little hobby I picked up since…”

Since we last saw each other, Neera thought. Another thing to add to the list of distance between them.

Sadly, she finally asked, “Why’re you helping me, Isaiah? And don’t say it’s because of goodwill or your ‘weird feeling,’ because I know that’s only the partial truth. I mean, really, why? There’s something you’re not telling me.”

A somber smile crossed Isaiah’s face. “You’re the only one who can do that—tell when I’m lying.”